Fuji Race 2: Delight and despair for JMR as Ibrahim and Green win again

Prince Jefri Ibrahim scored his third win of the season, and second in three rounds alongside co-driver Ben Green, in an action and incident packed second race at Fuji where JMR’s other Corvette lost third place at the final corner of the last lap.

The #99 Z06 GT3.R controlled the race from pole position until a late Safety Car period wiped out its near-19-second advantage. But while Ibrahim successfully negotiated the final lap shootout the same could not be said for several other top contenders – including his brother Abu Bakar who collided with Ruan Cun Fan’s Team KRC BMW in sight of the finish.

Origine’s Porsche shared by championship leaders Bob Yuan and Leo Ye inherited second place earlier on the same lap when a spinning Mike Zhou collected Lu Wei, while Craft-Bamboo’s Cao Qi and Jayden Ojeda completed the overall podium despite being caught up in the Corvette and BMW’s late racing incident.

That and an earlier penalty for 5ZIGEN’s Nissan helped Origine’s Li Kerong and Anders Fjordbach claim their maiden Silver-Am victory and finish an impressive fifth overall. Silver spoils went the way of Harmony’s Ferrari driven by Andy Deng and Luo Kailuo, and Garage 75 collected Am honours courtesy of David Tjiptobiantoro and Christian Colombo.

IBRAHIM MATCHES ORIGINE

A third victory of the season on Saturday saw Origine’s Yuan and Ye replace Ibrahim at the top of the drivers’ standings. An immediate response was therefore required and the Malaysian delivered thanks in no small part to Green who converted pole position into a five-second lead before the pitstops.

Ibrahim rejoined knowing that the cars previously running second, third and fourth – Origine’s #4 and #87 Porsches plus JMR’s other Corvette – would all lose time due to success penalties. His advantage over the new second placed car, Absolute Corse’s Lamborghini, initially stood at 14 seconds and grew by four over the next quarter of an hour.

But his and JMR’s serene run to victory was interrupted with 14 minutes remaining when Wang Zhongwei’s pit-bound Absolute Porsche was hit from behind by Uno’s Audi driven by Rio, who was attempting to slipstream past without realising the 911’s intended destination. The heavy contact spread both cars and debris across the start/finish straight, which necessitated a long Full Course Yellow period and subsequent Safety Car.

There was time for just one more full lap when racing resumed. Ibrahim nailed the restart and was untroubled into Turn 1 where Lu took second from Zhou. They were still locked together at Turn 6 where Zhou lost control under braking and speared across the grass, over the apex and into the side of a helpless Lu.

Their tangle promoted Yuan to second, an impressive position given the car he shares with Ye had served an additional 15 seconds during the driver change for winning yesterday. Indeed, their Porsche rejoined seventh before working its way up to fourth before the Safety Car was called.

JMR’s other Corvette was also on course to convert a success penalty into a podium until Ibrahim and Cun Fan took different lines into the final corner and converged at the apex. Cao was powerless to avoid also hitting the BMW from behind but recovered just in time to fend off Absolute Corse’s Lamborghini shared by Vincenzo Ricci and Loris Spinelli, who coincidentally also made contact with Ojeda at the final corner just before the pitstops began.

The separate final lap incidents elevated Origine’s Silver-Am winning Porsche into the top five for the first time this year. The class’ initial podium finishers completed the race together with Li leading Han Mingwan (Vollgas) and Huang Ruohan (Absolute Corse) across the line. However, Han’s five-second time penalty for causing a collision subsequently dropped the car he shares with Daan Arrow to 13th overall.

GTO’s Brian Lee and Nico Menzel moved up to seventh in the final result, while Absolute Corse’s Ferrari, Harmony’s Silver class-winning 296 and Craft-Bamboo’s second Mercedes-AMG completed the overall top 10.

Results are HERE